1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a feeder tray and an image printing apparatus having the feeder tray.
2. Description of the Related Art
In facsimile apparatuses for domestic use, which are the so-called home-facsimile apparatuses, and for use in small-sized office, a thermal printing system using a roll of heat-sensitive paper were conventionally employed in many cases. However, in recent years, a thermal transfer system using plain cut paper (hereinafter referred to as plain paper printing) has been increasingly employed as a mainstream in place of the thermal printing system.
Since the plain paper is cut paper, no curling occurs and a direct writing thereon is possible and no color fade is generated. For these advantages, the plain paper can be stored for a long period of time.
In such a home-facsimile apparatus of a plain paper printing type, compact and lightweight are required. However, the miniaturization and weight reduction of the apparatus make it difficult to have feeder cassette containing plain paper built in the main body of the apparatus. In order to solve the difficulty, there is used the structure in which the feeder tray is attached to the main body of the apparatus to project to the outer section thereof. In this structure, the plain paper mounted on the feeder tray is sent to a printing head and a nip of a printing roller together with an ink film by an auto-sheet feeder (ASF) roller.
Such a conventional feeder tray has a length, which is substantially the same as the length in a longitudinal direction of an A4-sized paper in order to support the plain paper along its entire length. For this reason, the size of the main body of the apparatus is reduced, but an area necessary for setting the entire apparatus extends in back and forth directions of the apparatus than the facsimile using a roll of paper. Then, if the length of the feeder tray is simply reduced to lessen the apparatus setting area, there occurs a case in which paper cannot be smoothly fed.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above-mentioned problem, an the object of the present invention is to provide a feeder tray, which is capable of reducing an apparatus setting area as maintaining its operability, and to provide an image printing apparatus having such a feeder tray.
The object of the present invention is that a feeder tray can be folded and that paper feeding can be carried out even in a state that the feeder tray is folded.
The above object can be achieved by a feeder tray comprising:
a tray body having a first mounting surface for supporting a part of cut paper; and
a movable plate portion, attached to a back end portion of the tray body in a paper feeding direction to be freely opened and closed, having a second mounting surface for supporting the cut paper in cooperation with the first mounting surface when being opened, and forming an insertion port from which the cut paper can be inserted between the first mounting surface and the second mounting surface when being closed such that the first mounting surface and the second mounting surface are opposite to each other.
According to the aforementioned aspect of the invention, a setting area of the entire image printing apparatus can be reduced as maintaining its operability.